Mathematics, the RQF and the Way of the World. (March 15, 2006)

    Last week we published a couple of items on the lack of support for the most fundamental underpinning of science^{1, 2}. And now that Dr Nelson has reformed higher education in the Prime Minister, John Howard's image we can all sleep easy. Who needs maths when the Australian Workplace Agreements will whip those recalcitrant academics into shape.

Jan Thomas, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI) executive officer has pointed out that while the University of New England has more than 10,000 effective full-time students and has a range of courses that should have a serious mathematical and statistical content, including teacher education, it is about to reduce an already stretched staff of 6.5 to 4 to cope with the requirements of what should be appropriate servicing let alone fostering research.

The death of Archimedes

And Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society of London and the Astronomer Royal addressed a major UK conference on maths education -- the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education conference saying that while there was a marked under supply of highly qualified teachers of mathematics it "may become even more of a problem in the future when we consider the long-term drop in number of students who take mathematics after the age of 16."

Now in an interview with The Australian's Brendan O'Keefe Thomas has amplified her disquiet telling him, "[The universities] are starting to second-guess what the RQF [Research Quality Framework] will be like and saying, 'If maths is not a strength, well, we won't bother too much about filling positions. We'll build up somewhere where we think we might get a few more bikkies out of the RQF."'

Ms Thomas went on to say, "Nobody knows how the RQF is going to operate. Some universities are being very short-sighted about that because they're all dependent on having good statistical advice to do most of their research successfully."

AMSI director Philip Broadbridge added "cash-driven" universities had a "counter basic sciences and arts mentality. They are looking only at their own cash supply and they seem to think that if you get rid of basic sciences and humanities, and bring in extra professional degrees, then there's a surer supply of cash from full-fee-paying students."

Meanwhile the number of mathematicians at the University of Canberra has fallen from about 12 three years ago to 5.6 now, lecturer Mary Hewett told O'Keefe, and added "We've had redundancies kind of enforced. We're very much depleted. "It's been really difficult to be positive. The morale ... you can imagine."

According to Ms Hewett the university's bachelor of science degree contains no maths and only introductory statistics.

The extraordinary short-sightedness which permeates Australia's federal government when it addresses higher education and research really is monumental and appears to be driven by a toxic mixture of ideology and populism.